John Mack Flanagan; Marvelous Mark, 610 KFRC San Francisco | December 28, 1977

Recorded just a few days before the start of 1978, Airchexx Contributor, friend and personality John Mack Flanagan is heard on his afternoon show, followed by Marvelous Mark. This is a very high-energy aircheck and shows the incredible momentum KFRC had, even in the face of FM competition.

This is about as good as AM Top 40 got. There’s always that tug of war between East Coast listeners who preferred the WABC approach to the format, with its reverb and Dan Ingram’s one-liners, and West Coast listener favorite KFRC, which along with KHJ in Los Angeles, was owned by then media-giant RKO General. Listen to this aircheck and most will agree, KFRC going into 1978 was hotter than almost every other Top 40 radio station, AM or FM!

The highlights of this aircheck include the following:

About 9 and a half minutes in, John Mac Flannigan gets a call from a fan from a different radio station – on the East Coast! Andrea Davis calls in from WBZ Boston, apparently just to say hello! Says she’s on a watts line!

Lots of advertisements in the afternoon drive portion of this. A staple client on KFRC had to be the Record Factory (“…Top of the hill, Bailey City!”)! You’ll hear this ad several times during the course of this aircheck.

Rick Shaw voices a couple of promos. Promotions were ALWAYS a big deal on KFRC.. listen for “The Evolution of Rock”, the promo says another segment is ‘tomorrow’ featuring the years 1971 and 1972. Plus, year end countdowns were always fun, and The Top 100 of 1977 airs New Year’s Day without commercial interruption, hosted by Big Tom Parker!

Listeners will be treated to nearly two full newscasts, anchored by John Winters. The first is early in the aircheck, the second one about at about the 20 minute mark.

This is a long, but very enjoyable aircheck… the master recording runs over two hours, scoped down here for presentation it runs just over 45 minutes! Make time to listen, as this does not disappoint!

Many thanks to Big Apple Airchecks for contributing this awesome aircheck!



Aircheck #1,283 since May 2, 2002!